Cleveland Mass Mob V — Saint Vitus

Cleveland Mass Mob V

Saint Vitus

4 p.m. Saturday 28 June 2014

6019 Lausche (Glass) Avenue

Come see the frescos by contemporary Slovene artists echoing El Greco, depicting the Catholic faith, and the suffering of the Slovene nation in the middle of the twentieth century. The first president of independent Slovenija (who had been the last leader of the Communists just prior), Milan Kučan*, saw the war mural, and abruptly left the building. Confronted with the truth, he left. The Slovenes are a small Slavonic nation. Cleveland is their largest settlement outside the homeland.

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*Most Slavs are either Orthodox Catholics (of several national churches), or Roman (Latin Rite) Catholics, and some are Byzantine (Greek Rite) Catholics. A small number are Lutherans, or other Protestants. Slovenes are overwhelming from the Roman Catholic portion. Kučan was from a Lutheran family in the eastern most part of Slovenija.

Mass Mob, Quo Vadis?

 Cleveland Mass Mob I — Saint Casimir   23 March 2014  

Where does the movement stand?  It is still nascent.  The Buffalo model suggested an internet presence by social media, and also interaction by the regular media. Eleven locals announced, three never really started [by evidence from a distance], a couple do not give much to look at.

New York City will have their premiere on the first of June, and the original [Buffalo] will have number four. The most successful mobbings were Cleveland I, and then Buffalo III. Buffalo has had the best relationship with the internet, and the press.

The most positive and perceptive analysis of the mass mobs was by Clarissa Aljentera writing on Busted Halo. It really is good reading.

How will this be in a year? Will there be another wave of engaged locals? or less, and sputtering?

Well, Cleveland has seen three, and the fourth is on June 8th, Pentecost, the perfect day for a Mass Mob. Cleveland has five additional scheduled, and is planning to schedule more after Cleveland Mass Mob IV—Saint Colman. At first, winter was problematic (and may still be), and the thought was to be very light in scheduling, especially since Cleveland will be the national leader in mobbing this year; but a new member of the organising group is enthusiastic about winter dates. I think, there are a couple of surprises. I am really looking forward to #IV: early summer, in a big beautiful church, with a history of gathering for big events, and a much respected pastor, soon to be retired. Saint Colman has been a success story. A standing room crowd is not unexpected. There is seating for a thousand.

 Cleveland Mass Mob II — Saint Barbara  27 April 2014  Divine Mercy Sunday

The Mass began without electrical power.

 Cleveland Mass Mob III — Saint Adalbert  25 May 2014

It is also like we are having a tour of parishes. A friend wrote to me, "And a most important point about Mass Mobbing -- it is such a joyful experience. To see the variety of churches...to participate in the variety of liturgies, to see old friends, to make new ones....what better way to begin the week. St. Adalbert was such a happy mobbing.".

Welcome to Cleveland's Irish Cathedral

March 17 2009

When i entered Saint Colman's church on Saint Patrick's Day 2009, a television cameraman behind me, said in surprise, “this place looks better than the cathedral [John the Evangelist Cleveland]”. And it does. It is the custom in Cleveland, that, on the morning of every March 17th there are well attended Masses at several Irish parishes in Cleveland. On that day, there were twenty priests there to distribute Communion. Colman's pews, now, sit only a thousand. The choir loft [balcony] has no seats, it was densely standing room; and it was standing room in the nave, the narthex, the steps, and the sidewalk. Now, some of the people outside were not interested in Mass. People come to these Patricio Masses, and many go downtown for the parade, which in recent years has an audience of 200 thousands, or double that in good weather. At Colman's, there is a party in the crypt level serving food after the parade.

These numbers and activities are not out of the ordinary. You must realise, people here really want to celebrate something. For years, when Municipal Stadium was standing, opening day of baseball sold out, and then much of the rest of the season had six thousand in attendance. Every football game was sold out. Ah, that old, ugly, and stinky stadium, which looked like London's old Wembley, attracted eighty thousand (80,000) people to it. Well this particular day was something out of the ordinary.

On March 14th the news came as a shock to all, Saint Colman was to be among over fifty parishes to be closed on order of the bishop. Before Mass began on the 17th there was an all out push to save Colman's. Petitions were distributed, signed, and collected. Political representatives were called in, and so on. The pastor of St. Colman's gave a fiery defense of his parish before Mass. It turned to be a colossally stupid bit of timing for the reaper's list to have been announced on the eve of the Ides of March, hours before St. Patrick's Day. A very hard, AND PUBLIC campaign was mounted by Saint Colman's, and Saint Ignatius of Antioch's parishes, which successfully changed the bishop's decisions. Three years later all the parishes' appeals the bishop refused, and who then later appealed to Rome, proved successful. In those eleven decrees, Rome, in the end, sided with the parishes.

Colman's and Ignatius' were spared the break of continuity the eleven parishes that were in hiatus suffered through. Their appeals, if presented to Rome, would have also have been adjudicated successfully. They were spared the waiting period because of their quick, aggressive, co-ordinated, and public appeals.

The parish is a community of believers in God. One important question is what is the basic Christian unit? the parish [which was chartered by Jesus]*?, or the diocese? The diocese was a Roman governmental administrative unit of subprovinces.
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*“For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”— Matthew xviii. 20.

Cleveland Mass Mob IV — Saint Colman

on Pentecost Sunday 8 June 2014

 El Greco. Pentecost. c.1596-1600. Madrid.

And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place:  And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.  And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them: And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost,...  — Acts ii.

Cleveland Mass Mob IV
Saint Colman 

11 a.m. Sunday 8 June 2014

2027 West 65th Street

Cleveland Mass Mob III — Saint Adalbert

We waited for the white puff of smoke, and....

Cleveland Mass Mob III will be at Saint Adalbert

Cleveland Mass Mob III — Saint Adalbert
2347 East 83rd Cleveland Ohio
11 a.m. Sunday 25 May 2014

Please share the next Cleveland Mass Mob on your journals, Facebook, Twitter, and especially your family and friends!

Cleveland Mass Mob II — Saint Barbara

  (Divine Mercy Sunday — the Octave of Easter)

This is a special day for the Universal Church. Divine Mercy (of Jesus) Sunday is a new holiday in the church that is the first Sunday after Resurrection Sunday. This particular Divine Mercy Sunday will see the canonisation of two much beloved saints, former popes, John XXIII and John Paul II.

Saint Barbara Cleveland, on Denison Road bordering Jennings Freeway (Interstate I-176), is celebrating. Musicians are coming from Columbus. Barbara's has been a Polish nationality parish, and this Mass will be bi-lingual. Don't worry, the order of the Mass is the same, and one can pray to God in his own language, while one's neighbour does his own.

Now, although it is a pretty church, it is of a modest size. It has pews for six hundreds. So it is possible for making it standing room only, with folding chairs in the center pathway as was the scene at their Homecoming Mass [clicky here, here too]. Yes, this was one of the parishes that had their appeal of suppression upheld, and Rome ordered to be open forthwith.

Cleveland Mass Mob I — Saint Casimir

Old and Historic Saint Casimir’s, by Rockefeller Park, is the destination for Cleveland’s Mass Mob One. The regularly scheduled 11.30 Sunday Mass on March 23rd will have a few more than the regulars. On the same date, there are to be other Mass Mobs in Philadelphia and Buffalo.

In an attempt to increase awareness of, and attendance at, grand old parish churches a continuing series of mobs came to be formed. A group of Catholic church enthusiasts wanted more people to experience, and re-experience, the beauty of Catholic community and parish life. They appropriated the idea of a ‘flash mob’, and created the Catholic Mass Mob. Its first child is the Buffalo Mass Mob. After the Associated Press wrote about the Second Buffalo Mass Mob, the rest of America began learning about it. Immediately, people from other metropolitan areas wanted a Mass Mob for their gothams and burgs. After Buffalo, there first came Rochester, and then rapidly: Cleveland, New Orleans, Columbus, Wilmington, Covington, New York City, and Philadelphia.

In the different cities, different organisers have different goals. In some, such as Buffalo and Cleveland, the intent is appreciation of the aesthetic and the spiritual in these churches — a celebration in sacred space. Both of these cities have had Vatican intervention to keep churches open. The prime case is the Basilica [first in the USA] of St. Adalbert in Buffalo. For the second and third Buffalo Mobs, an internet vote determined the church to be mobbed.

The Cleveland Mass Mob wishes “to attract people to come for a Mass, a celebration of Liturgy and Eucharist, in a parish community of an historical, and beautiful church”. The initial field of candidates for future Cleveland Mass Mobs will be selected from the eleven Lazarus parishes that had Masses of Homecoming in 2012 after ‘the hiatus’.